<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">========================================================================<br>Call for two PhD positions on Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modelling at the <br>ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Trento, <br>in co-operation with University of Trento and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK).<br><br>Submission Deadline: March 16th, 2011<br>========================================================================<br><br>The ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology (LOA), Trento, in co-operation with the University of <br>Trento and the Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), is seeking candidates for two 3-year PhD projects<br>related to the general theme of Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modelling.<br><br>Position A (jointly supervised by UNITN and ISTC-CNR): <br>"Ontologies for business organization governance and business requirements evolution"<br><br>The research will be performed in the framework of the ERC Advanced Grant project "Lucretius:<br>Foundations for Software Evolution" led by John Mylopoulos, whose main objective is to develop<br>novel techniques for designing software that can evolve, either automatically of through human<br>intervention, in response to changes to its requirements and/or operational environment. Among<br>the aspects to investigate under a formal ontological approach, special relevance will have the<br>notion of threat for business organizations, and the ways of modelling change rationale in<br>requirements evolution. Please note that this position is included in the official call under the<br>generic title "Ontologies and algorithms for Requirements Engineering" (see instructions below).<br><br>Position B (jointly supervised by FBK and ISTC-CNR): <br>"Ontology-driven modelling of service systems"<br><br>The research will be performed in cooperation with the Data and Knowledge Management<br>(DKM) unit of FBK, led by Luciano Serafini. The notion of service system has been proposed recently<br>to account for the broader environment a business service interacts with, in other words the <br>socio-technical system the service is part of. A well-founded ontological approach is needed to address<br>the well-known gap between the business view of a service, expressed in terms of service offer,<br>service-level agreement and value chain model, and the technical view, expressed in terms of the<br>underlying business process. In turn this requires a deep understanding of the way ontological<br>representation and reasoning can be integrated with business process representation and reasoning. <br><br>The PhD studentship amounts roughly to 51,000 Euro over the three years.<br>Substantial extra funding is available for participation in international conferences, schools, <br>and workshops.<br><br>ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Master’s degree (Laurea Specialistica), or Italian undergraduate degree<br>from the old system, or a foreign degree equivalent to one of these degrees.<br><br>The ideal candidates should have a good background in logic, and in knowledge engineering or<br>conceptual modelling.<br><br>INFORMAL ENQUIRIES ARE ENCOURAGED. Please get in touch with the contact persons below as soon<br>as possible, in order to have a better understanding of possible research activities and the formal<br>application details.<br><br>HOW TO APPLY: The positions are included in the UNITN and FBK Project-related Grants of the ICT <br>International Doctoral School, University of Trento, as reported in the official call, to be published<br>shortly at <a href="http://ict.unitn.it/application">http://ict.unitn.it/application</a>. All the positions are covered by a scholarship. The titles of such<br>project-related grants are more generic than the specific topics described in this informal call, so make<br>sure to quote the project-related grant you are interested in when applying, according to the instructions<br>below, as failure to do so may result in ineligibility for these positions:<br><br>Position A: Ontologies and algorithms for requirements engineering<br>Position B: Combining ontological and process-based reasoning<br><br>Closing date for applications is March 16th, 2011, 1 pm, local time.<br><br>CONTACT PERSONS<br><br>Position A:<br>Nicola Guarino (<a href="mailto:guarino@loa-cnr.it">guarino@loa-cnr.it</a>)<br>John Mylopoulos (<a href="mailto:john.mylopoulos@unitn.it">john.mylopoulos@unitn.it</a>)<br><br>Position B:<br>Nicola Guarino (<a href="mailto:guarino@loa-cnr.it">guarino@loa-cnr.it</a>)<br>Chiara Ghidini (<a href="mailto:ghidini@fbk.eu">ghidini@fbk.eu</a>)<br><br>LINKS<br><br>Application for PhD Positions: <a href="http://ict.unitn.it/application">http://ict.unitn.it/application</a><br>LOA web site: <a href="http://www.loa-cnr.it/">http://www.loa-cnr.it</a><br>Mylopoulos web site: <a href="http://disi.unitn.it/users/john.mylopoulos">http://disi.unitn.it/users/john.mylopoulos</a><br>DKM web site: <a href="http://dkm.fbk.eu/">http://dkm.fbk.eu/</a><br><br></body></html>